A note on old photo albums - they were not made to be kind to your pictures. Please remove the photos (as best you can) and put them in an acid and lignin free album. Having some dental floss nearby can helpful in getting them unstuck from the pages. Worst case is you cut the photo out with the album page stuck to it.
Second step is to SORT. Begin going through and selecting photos you want, deleting or trashing the ones you don’t. Do this with both physical and digital photos. There is no need to keep photo’s that are blurry, unflattering, or of people you don’t know. If you have several of the same subject, pick the best and move on.
Third step is to ORGANIZE. Create file folders in your photo app with years, events and/or categories that make sense to you. Then drag the photos into the corresponding files. If you are able to rename the photos with year and subject it is helpful in searching.
For physical photos, grab a photo safe pencil and write on the back. You can use the same file naming system as you did for the digital photos, only difference is the photos will be in a storage container. You can use large index cards as dividers, writing the category or year keep them in order.
During this process put aside any physical photos you want to digitize. You can scan them yourself or find a service that can do it for you.
Fourth step is to MAINTAIN a system. Set aside time to go through and delete unnecessary photos. Doing this makes the end of year sorting so much easier. You will already have the best pics chosen!
Setting up the system is the hardest, but when you want to find photos of a particular person because you are creating a collage for a party or a scrapbook for a friend, or you want to know what year you took the trip to France - you will be able to find it much easier and not have to scroll through 100’s if not 1000’s of photos.